Salvation Is Free, But Discipleship Will Cost

To Be Sure, God Shall Call You, And Us, Only At The Hour That God Has Chosen. Until That Hour, Which Lies In God's Hand Alone, We Shall Be Protected Even In The Greatest Danger; And From Our Gratitude For Such Protection Ever New Readiness Surely Arises For The Final Call

Just As God's Love Entered The World, Thereby Submitting To The Misunderstanding And Ambiguity That Characterize Everything Worldly, So Also Christian Love Does Not Exist Anywhere But In The Worldly, In An Infinite Variety Of Concrete Worldly Action, And Subject To Misunderstanding And Condemnation. Every Attempt To Portray A Christianity Of 'pure' Love Purged Of Worldly 'impurities' Is A False Purism And Perfectionism That Scorns God's Becoming Human And Falls Prey To The Fate Of All Ideologies. God Was Not Too Pure To Enter The World.

A Pastor Should Never Complain About His Congregation, Certainly Never To Other People, But Also Not To God. A Congregation Has Not Been Entrusted To Him In Order That He Should Become Its Accuser Before God And Men.

Only Those Who Obey Can Believe, And Only Those Who Believe Can Obey.

Pain Is A Holy Angel Who Shows Us Treasures That Would Otherwise Remain Forever Hidden; Through Him Men And Women Have Become Greater Than Through All The Joys Of The World. It Must Be So And I Tell Myself This In My Present Situation Over And Over Again. The Pain Of Suffering And Of Longing, Which Can Often Be Felt Even Physically, Must Be There, And We Cannot And Need Not Talk It Away. But It Needs To Be Overcome Every Time, And Thus There Is An Even Holier Angel Than The One Of Pain; That Is, The One Of Joy In God.